 Good afternoon. Welcome to Cooper Hewitt. Welcome to our designing and accessible New York City panel discussion. Thank you. And thank you all for choosing to spend your afternoon or your day with us at Cooper Hewitt. Cooper Hewitt is committed to broadening its audiences and ensuring that the museum is welcoming to all. We're thrilled to be able to use our galleries and our museum resources to raise awareness of accessible design innovation and inspire dialogue. This is a journey. And today's symposium, Cooper Hewitt's two week lab design access and the access and ability exhibition on our first floor galleries and online are only part of this movement that will grow and build and leverage Cooper Hewitt's role as a dynamic design hub to promote problem solving and support of inclusivity. Cooper Hewitt's collection was founded by two New York sisters, Sarah and Eleanor Hewitt who ultimately gifted all of the objects to the Smithsonian with the express caveat that it never leaves New York City. Our permanent residence housed in Andrew Carnegie's 1902 home is our brick and mortar residence in New York City. So designing an accessible New York City is a conversation that resonates not only for us and our visitors and institution, but it's 8.53 million residents and it's 60.3 million visitors. No pressure. This afternoon's panel is assembled to explore what it means to design an accessible New York City by looking at physical infrastructure, planning accessible systems and tools and assistive technology. We'll explore how an infrastructure built in the early 1900s can address the diversity of needs that are being asked of these systems and how might technology bridge those gaps. Let me introduce you to our moderator, Commissioner Victor Khaleesi. Victor is the Commissioner of the Mayor's Office for People with Disabilities since 2012. He acts as a liaison between the disabled community and city government and advocates for the passage of legislation to help the disabled community and is the Chair of New York City Building Code Accessibility Committee. Victor will throw it out to the panel to introduce themselves. So over to you, Victor. Thank you, Pam. Appreciate it. Thank you everyone for being here and I do have one house rule. Tweet and tweet often. And the reason I say that is not the fact that we just want publicity, but we want publicity about people with disabilities. Any time there's a conversation of going on about people with disabilities, we've accomplished something. And the more that we're there and the more that we're loud and the more that we're proud, the more we're going to make a difference. And we can't do that unless we all do it together. So thank you and please tweet as much as you can. It's an honor to be here. My office does a lot of great work for people with disabilities, but I'm especially happy that we're here today talking about accessibility in our city. I want to recognize Tom Finkelperl, the commissioner of the Department of Cultural Affairs. Tom is a tireless advocate for people with disabilities. And when we put out the cultural plan, he ensured me that we would lead with people with disabilities. And he did that and he did a great job. Thank you, Tom. And thank you for commitment to people with disabilities. Caroline Bowman, thank you for today. I appreciate everything that you've done in putting this together. And Ruki and Pam for everything that they've done. So I want to kick it over to the panel to introduce themselves because we've got a diverse panel of people that are up here. And I have to admit there's more women than men, so that's a good thing, right? So I guess we'll start off with Cleo. Introduce yourself and a little bit about the work that you do. My name is Cleo King. I'm deputy commissioner at Mayor's Office for People with Disabilities. And I have worked in the field of disability civil rights for 30 years. I was like two when I started. And in our office, I've been with the city for three and a half years, so it was a little different transitioning from nonprofit world to the city. But our agency, we do a lot. We work with the community. We take in issues, complaints, ideas. And we work with the city agencies in trying to help them make their programs and facilities more accessible. Hi, everybody. I'm Luke Dubois. I'm a professor at New York University. I co-direct something called the Ability Project, which is an interdisciplinary initiative for human-centered design for people with disabilities. We do all sorts of stuff. One of the things we did was we ran a really awesome class in collaboration with the Cooper Hewitt last fall looking at this space. It's a site of innovation and accessibility. So I'm excited to be here. I'm Patricia Moore. I'm an industrial designer. And I'm also a gerontologist. And I've found a path in life of trying to make accessibility, usability for all ages and abilities. And I've never designed for a disability. Because why would I? I designed for someone's capacity. And my job is to augment it and exceed it and give people the tools that they need so that they're no longer referred to as someone with a disability. My name is Alex Ilguden. And I'm actually kind of here in a hybrid role. I'm the president founder of Wheeling Forward and the Access Project. The Access Project is a wellness center specifically designed for people with disabilities and was featured in the Cooper Hewitt recent journal specifically on our design and how we cater to that population. And I also work for the New York City Taxi and Lazeen Commission as the accessibility manager in helping the city increase accessibility for its taxi fleet. So I look forward to this panel. My name is Elise Roy. I'm a consultant. And I help organizations analyze things from the perspective of people with disabilities. I have 15 plus years of working with a disability community. I used to be a disability rights lawyer in my former life. And now I do inclusive design. We've got them all clustered down here. Hi. My name is Kat Holmes. I'm a designer engineer. Recently founded my own company dedicated to inclusive product design and development. Doing that with some of the well-known names of startup and big tech, the Facebooks and the Pinterest and the Microsofts of the world. My focus is on really the starting point for people into the space, coming into the space of really thinking about accessibility and inclusive design and starting with how we recognize exclusion in our own work that we, the things that we create and helping companies really see the spaces that they're creating exclusion across physical, social, cognitive types of interactions that people have with their products. Hi. My name is Kira Gwin. I'm the designer of a sitting aid called Scallop which features in this exhibition. I work for a company called RAT2 in Denmark which is based there. And we specialize in creating products for children with disabilities. Great. All right. Excellent, excellent panel. Thank you. We're going to jump right into this and I just encourage everyone to just be as honest as you possibly can. Let's try to have some fun up here and get some laughs in here and really talk about accessibility. I just, I like having fun at work. I think Cleo could attest to that, right? It's nothing worse than going to work and not having fun. And I just had an espresso so I'm just like on fire. Cleo knows exactly what I'm talking about. Patricia, you just mentioned something that just hit me right away that you don't design for people with disabilities. That you just design. Can you talk a little bit about that? As a child, I was gifted with the vision of watching my grandparents in our home and when people say, why did you become a gerontologist and they kind of cringe, it's sadly what we saw with our beloved late Dr. Butler who tried so hard to get young medical students interested in the field of geriatrics and they would say, oh, geriatrics, well, they're just gonna die. And it's like, yes, as are you sooner than later if you keep that up. But I was struck by the fact that I was listening to the adults in the room talk about my grandmother and my grandfather with each passing year as, you know, oh, poor deer or oh, poor thing or what they can't do as if they were being blamed for aging and losing capacity. And the only reason they lost capacity was that there was a misfit with the tools, the environment, the products that they lived with. And I just considered a great blessing that I realized they were not to blame. They were not at fault. And as my education progressed and as my career started, I fought very hard to establish a new mentality and methodology and design that embraced all people of all levels of ability as equal. And I fought very hard about the language because I found as I met with corporations all over the world, if I was sitting with the board, the president, the CEO, and I started to say, well, why don't we take your product line and make sure we extend it to the needs of people who don't have vision or people with lack of hearing or people who ambulate with wheels instead of one foot in front of the other. They would say, oh, we don't design for those people. So my mantra has always been to, first of all, in my head, beat them to a bloody pulp and then smile and, you know, get them past that prejudice to recognize that that's rather stupid not to want the money of all consumers as equal. And so I fought very hard to remind us that none of us is fully abled and none of us is disabled. We all have a capacity. We all have a level of ability. It's forever evolving and changing. A woman in her third trimester has as much trouble getting out of a chair as I do now recovering from a crushed leg. And I work with so many of our wounded warriors. And when I... I was struck by a car in New Zealand. So I was in New Zealand for a few months recovering there, and then when they brought me back to the States and I got to go to the VA again, all the guys in the ward were so happy to see me and so relieved and so delighted that I was walking and I'm looking at these wonderful kids without limbs and arms and here they were worried about mom. And so that's why I celebrate the fact that if we can take the focus off of the name calling and the silos and the assumption that we're designing for special interest groups and try and create this umbrella of sensible, reasonable, realistic, good finance, good citizenship and make consumers able by design that we do a better job and we don't have to worry about those people. So inclusive design. It's kind of what everybody, person with a disability, looks for. And we hear about those people, right? And we hear about those people. Those two people are all of us. And I'm just trying to figure out how do people with disabilities get involved in the design process of things? Kat, can you take that? Sure. Thanks, Victor. Actually, you had a great discussion over lunch and that question came up as well. So the... When I think about the one place where we could make the biggest difference in the cycle of exclusion and design is by transforming who makes the things that populate our world. And to do so, really changing the profession of design or whatever engineering, whoever's making these solutions, changing that profession requires rethinking how our hiring practices work. A lot of, just as an example, tech companies, they have you come in and you're in intense scrutiny for six or seven hours in interviews, one-on-one questioning and precision questioning and really rethinking how does that really apply to the skills that we're hiring for? If we're thinking about the creative coding skills that someone has, someone who's on the autism spectrum, thinking about that hiring process and how would you need to transform the stages of conversation, the types of problem-solving engagement? Could it happen through an active, you know, tactile exercise as opposed to a verbal Q&A? And so, in the companies that I've worked with, thinking about how that process can become a six-week engagement with mentorship over time to help assess skills that are actually core to the work that needs to be designed and done, and then that being a continuation to a success in the role, which then requires another set of evaluations around how the environment really is supporting the skills that are key to the role as opposed to someone adapting themselves to the environment and the culture that already exists. So there are substantial transformations that need to happen in how we hire, how we...the tools that are required to practice, and then also in the design process, thinking about building relationships with communities. We've also talked with quite a few people here about the role of human beings, the interdependence between people, and that design, as much as we love objects in design and things that we can hold, the real engagement and the real creativity comes from how people are bringing together their skills. And so, whether it's at the beginning or the end or the middle of your design process, my focus is how can we bring in with a substantial contribution and a compensated role with a real design impact with a range of people with disabilities, abilities across the cognitive and physical, a wide, wide spectrum. And so creating ways to do that in a way that is equal to the value of that contribution that a person is compensated in that way as well is incredibly important. Yeah, I just wanted to follow up on that a little bit to bring it a little bit more into the New York City realm. I think Victor has been a great champion in kind of pushing that forward. The MOPD has created the concept of the DSF, which is Disability Service Facilitator, which I am one of at the Taxi-Business Commission, but we have a couple here. Chris Noel at the Parks Department. Jen is here from HRA. I think I saw a couple others in the room. But I think it goes to the point that the city is taking an active role in trying to get people with disabilities into those kind of positions and then advocating for accessibility. The truth is I have two roles at the Taxi-Business Commission. One is making sure that office is accessible, which should tell you, to be honest with you, sometimes as challenging as making the taxi fleet accessible. And, you know, I work in a building. Yeah, Victor said we should be very honest, so I'll be very honest as a city employee. Uh-oh. I work in a building that has three... Be careful of that lawsuit, Alex. Yes, I know. I work in a building that has three government agencies in it taking up, you know, their 20, 30 floors. When I started working there, the front doors did not have a push panel. There were about four or five doors there. And it was a little bit mind-boggling to me. And I had to pick whether the first thing I was going to fight about was going to be a taxi policy or the front door. And I did choose taxi policy. You know, I wanted to get in there and earn my credit a little bit. But ultimately, it is very true. In the workplace and in your specific position, you have to advocate for accessibility. It's becoming much more the norm and accepted that having a person with a disability in such a role is like having a resident advocate. I'm often called a resident advocate. And I look at that as a great way to state the role and position that you have. It doesn't... And I think the conversations come a long way because when I asked for a push panel at the door, not a single person at the agency looked at me funny. Years ago, they probably would have. Now, what if I wasn't a quadriplegic in a wheelchair and I asked for a push panel at that door, would they have been looked at funny? Probably. I don't think that conversation has gone that far yet. But nonetheless, it is getting there. So let's talk about that push panel, right? How many people in this room? I'm just going to ask you. I'm going to take a quick survey that you look for that curb cut when you're walking down the street. Everybody raise their hand. It's just about everyone, right? Universal design. And when you go into Duane Reads now, what do you see? An automatic door that everyone could walk into. So that universal design is certainly enforced. But what are the innovative ways that we are tackling accessible design? Cleo, you want to weigh in on this? Sure. As you had said, you're chairing the committee on the building code and the accessibility chapter as we amend the code to bring it up to the international code standards. That process is long. It takes a long time. So if you do create something innovative that's going to make, say, the city streets more accessible and it doesn't fit within that code book, you have to advocate as a designer to get that concept in there somehow so that it does comply with the code. Somebody's not going to cite you for violating the code. Somebody's not going to sue you because you didn't build to the code standards. And a good example that we've been... That's a council. That's my council speaking, right? Sorry. I have to take that hat off. But we've been working with a company that's trying to take the concept of bus lift and make it for entrances that have a step or two where there isn't enough room to put a ramp, a permanent ramp or a permanent lift on the street and that it deploys when it needs to and then goes away when it's not needed. But again, it's going to be a challenge to get that approved by the code folks. And so we need advocates. We need designers who are advocates for these types of things so that as we see improvements, we can get them implemented. Thank you. Eluish, you want to weigh in on this a little bit for accessibility and design? The caption is to come up. Technology's not there yet, huh? So whether technology is there... Of course not. There's so much... such a long way to go. But it's definitely getting... Technology is getting better and better. For me, just in the past five years or so, it's completely opened up my door. I now have an app on my phone that captions what is said. I can call people for the first time in my life, pretty much. That's been amazing, an amazing experience. What app is that? InnoCaption. So the FCC approved of it and it's paid for by the FCC and basically when I call somebody up, it just captions what is said. It's extremely helpful. Thank you for that. I learned something today. So how is the accuracy on that app? It all depends. Sometimes it's great, sometimes it's not. And as a person with a hearing loss, you are kind of always playing catch up in a conversation, whether it's on the phone or trying to read somebody's lips. Understanding all depends on the person but from 50% to 75% of what is said and you're trying to put pieces together like a puzzle. People who are deaf and hard of hearing are pushed aside a lot in designing for hearing access. Can you give us some great examples of how we can bridge that gap in hearing access? Because we struggle with our office and I came here today was very excited to see ASL and captioning and often when we put meetings together in my office, we get all this technology in there but it never runs smoothly and it's frustrating because it's such a disadvantage for people who are deaf and hard of hearing. Can you give some examples of some ways we could improve that technology? Improve the technology. Definitely it starts with voice recognition, improving that. In terms of the city, things like I have problems if there's an ambulance coming, I might not hear it so maybe having some sort of visual display at lights, flickering lights or something like that. In terms of transportation, I believe, I don't know, I haven't been on throughout New York subway system very much but I have had problems where I've taken a train and somebody comes out and just yells the stop and I've gotten on the wrong train and ended up in the wrong place so making sure that those types of signs are there, pretty basic stuff like that. It's increasing technology and also ensuring that people have a good understanding of doing that. Yeah, and there's also some really cool stuff happening. For example, in accessible alley, they're trying to design their first fully accessible self-driving car and one of my clients there is in charge of putting in the technology which will interpret voice into sign language AVHR and sign language into voice. It's a really cool technology and if I could have that anywhere, it would be amazing. One of the things that I wish I could do is just be able to strike up a conversation with anybody, a stranger and I really miss that and so for that to come into being is extremely exciting. Yes, working with the deaf and hard of hearing community, we see more and more of this and it's our commitment to do that within the city and find out new innovative ways to move forward and I know a lot about accessible alley. I wish just that the computer electronics show with them and I've been working closely with them and we'll talk about accessible alley and autonomous vehicles later. So how is this happening in Denmark? So if you can touch base and let us know, Kira, right? Kira, if you can, because there's a lot of things that are happening in the U.S. and a lot of people you hear from the U.S. What's Denmark? It's a very progressive country, really socialized medicine, really care about people with disabilities, lots of studies and innovative things that are going on. My wife did a study in Denmark and lived there for a couple of months with the spinal cord research, so I know they're on the cutting edge. So give us some insight. So I don't know how much detail I can go into. I've only been there for two and a half years. But I think one of the things that struck me most about being there is I don't know if anyone's been to Denmark or Scandinavian general. One of their favorite transportation is bicycle and one of the things I noticed by moving around in the different cities and especially in larger cities is the accessibility for bikes, pushbikes. If you look at their ramps, traditional ramps for, I guess, wheelchair users when they're put in places and throughout Denmark and I'm sure in other places as well, these ramps are built in to lots of areas where there's steps or where there's any sort of different levels and they're there designed from the beginning for pushbikes. And that brings me to and something that we've built, took away these steps. Yes, they're still there as an option, but you're putting this ramp which is built in as the design is the core, not afterthought. And with these ramps, yes, they're designed mainly for pushbikes. But then you have mums and dads pushing strollers and pushchairs, then you've got wheelchairs, you've got kids coming down the skateboards and you've got kids running up and down the ramps and all of a sudden it becomes this community of people and everybody's using what was designed or the intention art for pushbikes. And I think that there's a great way of looking at it in terms of inclusive design is how you can take one element and how that adapts to so many different people and to so many different needs. And I think that it's a great example for these ramps. I'm sure everybody's seen some ugly ramp that's been put on the side of a building as an afterthought. And you just look at it and you go, and all of a sudden when you see these beautiful curvy ramps or paths see them and all of a sudden you look at it with a completely different perspective and you have children running up and down and pushchairs and bikes and skateboards and all of a sudden it becomes part of it and you don't look at it in a certain way. It becomes a part of the environment and there's positive experience. So that universal design more or less is really building a universal design and building for the wheel which I love for lots of reasons and it really builds at social integration. Yeah, of course. So that social integration is there. Luke, I am going to get to you, I promise Luke. But we're going to talk about some challenges in design and how people decide that they're going to build this ugly ramp or this inclusive ramp. So build the stairs in front of us but put this little elevator next to us that gets some access. Let's talk about design that's not inclusive. Alex, I know that this is something that you wanted to talk a little bit about. Yeah, and anyone, feel free to jump in. Yeah, I'll kind of kick it off. I mean, this was a real issue that came up recently. Edith was here myself who were at a public forum where there was a structure, specifically an elevator that was going to be built to create access to a subway and a neighborhood here in the city and a lot of the local residents or those in the community board brought up this issue that, hey, you're going to be building this accessible thing here but it's not aesthetically pleasing. It doesn't match our neighborhood. It doesn't really look good. They claimed it was under something else though. Well, they used two reasons and the other one was that it was a safety risk that there was some kind of risk for terrorism and it's like, at least they didn't say straight up that we don't really want access. At least it's become not okay to say that Right. Again, I'm getting there. And ultimately from being there and hearing the people speak, what really came out of it was like, hey, we support accessibility just not here. Make something else accessible. And that's an attitude that does exist. You know what I mean? It's a real problem. Thankfully, there were disability advocates in the room who made everybody turn red in the face when they were talking and it was great. Ultimately, the committee voted in favor of the access. But this is a real stigma, a real underlying problem that in this case it came out to the forefront but how many times does it not come out to the forefront? Yeah, those are real issues and our design has to be inclusive. Can someone give an example of a Denmark design that's been placed here in the city? Cleo? The High Line? Bingo! I won $100,000. No, the High Line, they have steps but in the steps they made the ramps kind of I guess almost perpendicular so that the steps in the ramps are all one structure as opposed to again, you have the steps and then the elevator, the ramp, it's not, you have to go hunting for it. And I think that was great and I think the reason why was because the parks department was really involved in getting the High Line constructed and we're coming from the point of view of access needs to be included from the beginning, not an afterthought and I think that is really important to work with designers, developers, architects, builders, engineers so that they know that that's important and it's not this kind of well, not my project, oh I support it but not in this project because this project is a piece of art and the art's all about stairs so we can't have access. People need to be educated and I think a lot of times before I came to the city I worked with a lot of architectural firms, some people got it, some people didn't a lot of times it was just they were following the minimal code requirements. We have to do this, they didn't understand why they had to do it. They, and I really think that if people understood what it meant to have a ramp as opposed to stairs ramps work for everybody whether you're toting your suitcase to JFK from midtown taking the air train or you're pushing a stroller or you're pushing your bike on the street. Luke, yeah I'm going to come you're up Luke. Oh yeah this is very true, this is an education problem maybe, maybe some of this is an education. I remember reading your story and the story you said about the elevator and I remember reading that in the paper and being so troubled by it that I actually kind of like shut it off in my head and you just reminded me of the story I was like oh yeah I read that, that's completely insane. Yeah but the education thing, so to your point we teach this stuff and engineering students and design students are very easily radicalized on this issue in the best possible way like if you sort of look around the room you can get them like woke pretty fast to it and then you can keep them there if you really focus them on not just the letter of the law but also the spirit of human center design but you also need it for everybody right, you need it for the community board members to understand why it is and you need it for tourists on the high line to understand what it is and that to me feels like the push and I think one of the hardest things in this space that whole like to your point I loved your language on how this all puts together this whole like you know if I'm a designer who am I designing for right and what am I designing towards and I always think like Ursula Le Guin had this all great line when she would give a speech right this whole like I have no right to speak to you I only have the responsibility you have given me to speak to you right and like if you kind of hold that in your head you're going to just come up with better stuff and you're not and you're still going to make mistakes but you're going to make less mistakes right and you're going to make more inclusive mistakes maybe it's not yeah we're going to hold it quiet we're going to get to questions and answers don't worry about that Alex I have one you know I wanted to just touch on this concept real quick of radicalization or folks being really like really gung-ho about accessibility I really think it's when our able-bodied fellow citizens you know find a use or use is found for them that things really change and I'm going to bring up a very unique example that happened that I've seen happen over the last year or two that I think is phenomenal so you know I worked as an attorney for many years and I'm still an attorney not for many but for several years after college and I worked in courthouses and one of the biggest challenges in courthouses was accessible desks and getting desks that are high enough for my wheelchair to come under and honestly they were I worked for a certain judge and everything was like antiquated in a good way like antique in a courtroom and there was this like really beautiful desk that I worked at but it was too low so for a year I worked as a judicial fellow and I had to work sideways because I couldn't get underneath it and that's a bad example but now I work in a government office where because we've had an epidemic of pain and I've seen this in a lot of offices you can't find a desk that isn't height adjustable every single desk in my specific government office and I know in many other places now is height adjustable I would never have to make a special request or do anything you just roll up there's a little switch you go up as high as you want I mean it's also because tons of people are working standing up now but this is like I wish I would have made this argument that desks should be height adjustable to save people's back pain not because my wheelchair needs to fit under it but it's like this revolution that I've seen that's happened naturally or not naturally that's like this very unique conjunction of social integration and design and technology and it's like things like that that happen one baby step baby step at a time is how we get to really inclusive workplaces and inclusive world so we're talking about we heard a lot today about ramps and accessibility but it's bigger than wheelchairs and we people with disabilities are always fighting the issue of a 1900's infrastructure Cooper and Ewitt were big advocates for subways and I just read a book called the race underground and just think about that if we were able to build elevators back then but we didn't have the foresight to think about that but now we are in a new era and new infrastructures are being built but the problem with the new infrastructures that are being built is people with disabilities are fighting the old infrastructures trying to make them accessible and now new infrastructures are being built and they quasi have accessibility built into that so Luke let's talk about technology and how we can bridge because I wholeheartedly believe and I know from the work that we've done in our office that we can bridge the gap that we can actually take technology and I'm pretty sure you can talk to this right just being with Microsoft a little bit but we really push Luke off to the side but Luke it's your turn Luke it's all yours the way I always think of it it's 2018 and we don't have time for this shit anymore so we need to fix it that's how I think of it I like that I got to use that a lot that's my thought on this and so a lot of it is just we're making all these new things but we actually have technological capacity to fix so much of this stuff already and it's about a will to make these things there's also a gate keeping issue that I see so it's not that there aren't lots of really excellent and capable accessible designers out there or people who understand the precepts of universal design they're not getting pipelined correctly and the companies aren't amplifying that work I mean that's my read on it there are some groovy things coming online so things like speech recognition is just getting better and better and better because we have all this cloud stuff and it does smart things and you know it's cool and that's all great so I see a lot of things the big thing we do at the Ability Project is democratizing technology I just want everything to be a hundredth of the price in your pocket instead of being really expensive and god forbid in a clinical site I want things in your home under your control under your choice under your agency that's really how we think of it is just stuff is getting cheaper and that's always good I'm also looking more and more at things that are sort of in the cracks so if you're a college professor it's all about knowing more and more about less and less so I spend a lot of time with these meta things around things like pediatric assessment pediatric assessment is ableist do you all know what the Bury VMI is? they give children these tests for cognitive function that presumes sensory and motor function to test them they'll make you draw stuff on pieces of paper that's for life, that's my son and so I have declared war on that whole system and I'm trying to tear it down because that's a really terrible meta so how do we take great lead here but how do we fix that with technology what do you think some of the gaps are that we can bridge for that specific issue and that label that your son has here I do New York City's got to know there's an elevator that's easy technology it's not about technology it's about implementation it's about government, it's about people empowerment and if I'm at an elevator fine, I can stumble my way down the stairs and when my friend pursues that elevator she calls up she's got to get the person down at the ticket booth the fire department comes maybe they'll throw her over their back and they'll throw the chair down the steps any which way she can to get on that train to get home to get to where she needs to get to for that day this is a real thing what's the protocol somebody tell me what's the protocol well right now we're talking about technology and bridging the gap we'll be happy to what's the protocol well let's continue with the conversation with Luke we'll definitely be we'll answer those questions when we get to some questions and answers okay go ahead Luke you're right you should go ahead I want to speak to your question because it's not a question it's the reality of the issues of inequity and I'm a New Yorker but I don't live here full time anymore I was here about six months after my injury and when I checked into the hotel I asked the guy at the front desk in the event of an emergency how were they going to get me out of the room and I've always been mindful of the silly little map on the back of my door and where do I run in the midst of a fire what do I do but in this case I was still using a walker and he was he was exceptional I'll say he said I'm on duty all night I promise you I will carry you out we won't forget you don't you know we had a fire in the hotel that night and this man was banging on the door, used his pass key scooped me up brought me down to the lobby and all I could think of was you know why is it just about me what about the person who sleeps like they're dead to the world what about what about what about and so the fact that we have inequity and the fact that we've been arguing that technology is going to fix all things I think is the problem there's not always an app for that and we've got to get back to a more humanistic holistic view and a vantage point that says we are in fact all created equal and we have to start working towards that I am as frustrated as you are not just with government but with industry I've spent nearly 50 years speaking to this and I think it's rather sad but I still have to be very Irish and be hopeful that we're still talking about this so which leads into how do we how do we build that accessible environment that's able to identify when that elevator is out Cleo, you and I have had these conversations and with the real time of that actually looks like right I mean there's no reason really other than needs to be implemented that there's not some kind of sensor that tells somebody somewhere that this elevator is out and they can dispatch somebody to go fix it or that they can then let the train operators know that the elevator X Street is out and announce it and have the electronic sign on the train say it so everybody knows okay I can't get out at 42nd Street I have to go to 59th Street or whatever the situation is and I think it's about not doing what we've always done people get in ruts I eat the same sandwich every day for lunch people get in ruts people who work in the different industries people who work for the subway system this is the way it's always been done if I had a dollar every time somebody said well this is the way we do it I could retire tomorrow but because they're not thinking new ways to do things there are sometimes there are easy fixes if you just think outside the box that you've put yourself in I'll bring up for example from the transportation world as well you know something that we've learned and this goes across sectors is you know what do you do first let's say for example we're trying to make taxis accessible or make something accessible there's the human element which is the drivers who are driving the vehicles and helping the people with disabilities and then there's the hardware element the actual vehicles themselves now if we launched a huge training campaign to train drivers how to use accessible service and how to use these vehicles before the vehicles were out there how many drivers do you think would actually show up engage and how many would actually remember so in some ways we've spent years getting the hardware on the road there are thousands many thousands of taxis that have wheelchair accessible features and ramps and things like that and we get tons of complaints the number one complaint is I don't give a fuck about people with disabilities I had that argument can we watch with the language and just we gotta make this real we could but we can do it in a civil matter and that's against the rules they're not allowed drivers are not allowed to refuse that's a sub-disable offence the enforcement is you call if you call 3-1-1 you can dial 3-1-1 get the taxi medallion's number the time that it happened the TLC will issue a hearing the driver will get a license suspended $150 or get his license you don't have to show up you could write a letter of your statement you have to say what happened so what I was saying before that was we are working heavily now to add the humanistic element the training and it's difficult as a regulator as a government agency to sometimes do those at the same time demand is really coming into the taxi industry people wheelchairs are using it much more paratransit using it now drivers see this as a money-making opportunity tons of trips they're excited they want to learn they want to make sure they provide good service they know people are giving tips there was many years where they didn't believe that so it's cultural change and again with elevators you install the elevators new problem arises people get stuck sometimes it takes time to figure out the additional kind of steps that it takes to make something work from A to Z in government terms things take years it will take us the next 5 to 10 years as the TLC to train drivers culturally and physically how to use the ramp and how to deal with people with disabilities that's just the nature of it sometimes what goes first that's a good point if we think about the accessibility of buses and how long it's taken us to get to where we are today you're saying that this is going to take years so Kira let's talk about some of the issues that you see internationally for people with disabilities in design can you speak a little bit about that so can you repeat the question what do you see internationally in accessibility and design in Denmark you specifically spoke about some good design that happened because they built for the wheels because it's a very bike bike centered culture what obstacles do you happen to see internationally besides obstacles not in good design but obstacles have you I think I think each country in each city we keep seeing the same things and what are those things I think those things are in terms of between city bases it could be bad roads bad pavements, steps where do I find as we talked about the elevators and the lifts and what happens if they don't work how do we get around them transport I know particularly my route to work every morning and I thought about this and it was a little bit on the break we talked about it if I were to wake up tomorrow and lose the ability to walk or my legs I would actually have to change my route to work because my bus doesn't offer that ability to get on it so you're seeing some where buses aren't accessible as opposed to here in New York City every bus is accessible of course it would take a long long time to get these buses that they have all access but I think I've seen countless times where on my particular bus to work where you've seen parents that come on with strollers and the struggle that they have to do to get up these really narrow little tiny doors to get up and try and maneuver on and I think it's the same it's the same issue when we talk about people with disabilities and if you're on crutches if you've got a cane if you're in a wheelchair it's to look at the border picture and to see people and with all people we all have different abilities and different needs and it just so happens that this particular service doesn't offer this and I guess that's the the question is what happens if I did wake up tomorrow and didn't have my legs what would I do how do I get to work? Thank you so Pat you mentioned something a couple of minutes ago that you don't think everything can be solved by technology I believe there's a lot that can be solved by technology Kat you want to kind of take this on a little bit? What would you like me to take on? The idea of about technology not being able to bridge the gap or how technology can bridge the gap in a better way Patty and I are probably in a very similar category in terms of how we think about the role of technology I'd say that the enthusiasm for the potential technology is a tool it is what we make it it is put out in the world and people use it in all the ways you never intended and I think the real genius in some of the conversation here is design is as much about framing meaningful and good problems to solve as it is about the solutions to the problems that you've framed and so how does design frame problems that are pragmatic meaningful in the moment and often the things that are small moments and you think of how many industry focused efforts towards elaborate imagination of augmented realities where we can smell what it's like to be on Mars wouldn't that be fantastic but my gosh we spent $50 million trying to envision that experience and at the same time that $50 million could solve 50 million discrete meaningful pragmatic everyday problems to solve for people as they are navigating their way that might be and so when I think of the role of technology I think so many things that we've invented are sitting on shelves like a pantry in a kitchen just collecting dust because they've been applied to these problems that no one has and and so I see again and again with inclusive design when it's really about bringing in who is most excluded what are the barriers that they encounter the moment we start to frame problems from that vantage point you go to the pantry and you see you have more than enough to work with you have more than enough to create it is a matter of matching it up to those solutions and the places where people are so talking about and we touched on this earlier before is those people right and how I'm going to come back to this again how do we ensure that people with disabilities are included in the design process anyone want to take that one that's my quick response it's not inclusive design if you don't Alex yeah I mean I think that look I'm just going to I'm going to be a company or an agency that wants to make something accessible now specifically as a government agency there's a specific challenge right and I'm going to be open I'm not going to suggest this is a solution but you know some government agencies because of legal liability or other kinds of things sometimes if you bring people with disabilities in and identify a problem you've opened up a lawsuit but that by no means in any way shape or form should suggest that you should not engage with the disability community for their feedback and I think more and more I mean within this city but certainly other cities you know are at least within other cities it's becoming the norm if we're going to build something we're going to bring in a group of people with disabilities we're going to tell them what we're thinking we're going to identify we're going to state what our problems are and get their feedback and try to include it in the design and I hear more and more of that happening in terms of what companies or agencies are thinking of not just because they think they're going to get sued but because it's the right thing to do there are challenges all over the place in terms of making that happen but I think whether you're hiring people with disabilities whether you're bringing in you have a committee that's helping to consult on what you're working on the key is to include the community no matter what you say or how you frame it it is very difficult for somebody who's never lived this that has difficulty relating to learn this in a book or learn this in school and it ultimately does come from the community to give the proper feedback to how things should be designed so I'll say that it's really important to bring people with disabilities into the that's a deafism when you don't hear or you're not reinforced for 20-some odd years you tend to jump things up anyways people with disabilities need to be brought in at the beginning of the process and we don't do that not only do we have worse designs but it also ends up costing us an incremental amount more so I agree and we often do a lot of different things within the city to engage communities I know Chris Noelle who works in the parks department is there to ensure that he has a committee together when they're building new park features people with disabilities have an opportunity Alex did that when he was talking about Taxi and Limousine commission to do that but when is it the responsibility of the person with a disability or is it not I'm getting there so if I can just encourage everybody to wait until we open up for questions and answers I'm more than happy to get there so please that means everyone and I agree with you and this is the reason what I'm trying I'm getting at we have 40 minutes for Q&A in about 10 minutes so you guys will get there so let's talk about that right is it the responsibility of the person with a disability and we often pull people with disabilities into the conversation because we have to and we should but is it right for them to give their knowledge for free someone any expertise requires compensation I think in the moment that we recognize that expertise is a necessary contribution to a design is the moment that it is required to be compensated at the level of any expertise that is contributed to a design I think that there is a real challenge in checking off a list saying that you have done participatory design by seeking input but not having mechanisms to incorporate that solution and also it is important to have that loop and that cycle back once that feedback has been provided for people to see how it influenced the process I think transparency is one thing that design especially in technology has been lacking there is a bit of a professional expertise superseding the lived expertise and as we start to increase the value of the role and the compensation of people's lived experience as a contribution to design it also needs to come with a degree of transparency on how that contribution impacts the decision making Luke, go ahead completely valid just to amplify that the mantra is always technological innovation should never happen at the expense of stakeholder equity so if you can figure out a way so the community should not work for free no community should work for free it is a responsibility of the designer to front load an inclusive understanding of who this is going to impact in any way this is why things like artificial intelligence are really problematic in so many ways and there is a real opportunity for real good coalition politics around this because it is not just ableist, racist it is also sexist we are feeding computers with data and the people feeding the data are themselves a non-reverse set of people who have bias so the computer is just doing what it is told but it is being told the wrong stuff at the beginning and so the faster you can get to a situation where design professionals really have that checklist at the first day and know that if I am going to be making something I need to know everybody I need to bring into the conversation and I need to have the resources to bring them into the conversation I think it is in fairness I think the best way to do these things is to just be open resources are money and money needs to be allocated appropriately is what you are saying Luke to ensure that people with disabilities are getting paid for their design paid or voiced or credited or amplified or whatever that is I am going to give a more controversial answer I definitely think people with disabilities should get paid this is what they choose to do but it is not really that simple I mean in the sense that it is really a problem within the community for some people consulting or advising or advocating for accessibility it is a passion project I know I can see people in this room who have full time jobs that have nothing to do with accessibility and yet they advocate for accessibility they go to things they consult on it and they do it because it is a passion project when I was working for an attorney for a few years I did nothing in the field of accessibility disability I was a patent attorney but I worked I advocated I consulted I did it because it was a passion project you know what I mean we will perform for less than others I mean it really depends what field you are in and they look at others hey why are you doing this for free hey why are you lowering the bar it is really for us as a community to create a structure, a business structure there is organizations like United Spinal that has an architectural accessibility consulting wing and they have been successful in terms of consulting and charging lots of money to big companies and it is if it is something you don't want to do for free and you are an expert you are doing this for free but it is not as simple as saying we should there are all kinds of market dynamics and people characteristics and personalities that lead to how this works I wish that the industries that needed us would set the standard themselves and say you are going to get paid so there wouldn't be that side of it and that is where it needs to get to the majority of industries that consulting is a thing and consultants get paid but I think because we are still in the infancy of the accessibility movement as it becomes accepted we are not there yet we were talking you mentioned something about accessible Ali O-L-L-I-E what is your question it is a great piece of autonomous vehicle that is out there that was built with people with disabilities in mind do you know everything that is happening with accessible Ali not everything what else would you let me explain what accessible Ali is it is an autonomous vehicle and this autonomous vehicle will allow for a person with a disability to fully ride that and when I am talking about a person with a disability it runs the gamut Eloise talked about hearing aids that are in there so captioning, hearing loops that are built into this accessible Ali they have a ramp system that pre-detects if a person with a disability is going to ride and pre-arranges the seats prior to a person coming on so there isn't any of that confusion and when they get onto an accessible Ali they have a vice grip that actually has a gap between the wheels so they don't need a person to physically do that they also have an avatar in there so a person can sign someone who is deaf can sign with this avatar to get the information that they need they have cognitive buttons so people with visual disability people with cognitive disabilities can use those buttons for simple gestures so when they were thinking about accessibility the accessible Ali really brings that into a place that we've never seen before so I want to thank you Eloise for kind of mentioning that because it is a great piece of technology that is going to be a game changer for people with disabilities as autonomous vehicles come into the space because people with visual disabilities would love vehicles like this and I was at the Ruderman Foundation a couple of months ago and we were talking I was moderating a panel on transportation and the accessible Ali person was there and a person with visual disability raised their hand and said I want to be the guinea pig, I don't care if I die that's how we laugh and we think about the dangerous part of that but that's how important accessible transportation is to someone with visual disability I see Annie Lees back there from cultural affairs that's actually talking about that that really makes a difference in being able to provide that type of transportation and as cities become more smart how does that really encompass people with various disabilities people with visual disabilities that are crossing the street people with cognitive disabilities to navigate the way the street that comes on there how does a person who is deaf communicate with our accessible kiosks that are on the street like linkNYC how do we use our street grid to effectively add raised crosswalks so there's no ponding we don't have to worry about shoveling how do we build environments that are accessible for people with disabilities these are all the things that accessible smart cities will bring us and accessible design will put us into the future I am banking and hoping that we have technology that comes in there and to be more inclusive city I think we're running out of time before we get to questions but if if everybody on the panel can just give a little bit just a quick synopsis of what they think accessible cities and how they should be designed and before we open it up for questions I'd like to hear that Kira can we go with you first I think it's a great point where you mentioned just want to bring it up because it popped into my head when you talked about crossing roads so this is my first time in New York and crossing road here you have the light and the countdown right so when the countdown was coming on and I was standing waiting and then these people were crossing and I'm going what are they doing you can't cross because in Denmark we have the opposite system so when the countdown is coming it's the countdown to when you can cross so and it just confused the heller of me and I just think when we're talking about accessible sort of in inclusive cities we're talking about visitors coming over and it's a bigger picture and it's the world it's visual cues but I didn't understand that because I was used to seeing something else and understanding that so I think it's really important that when we are talking about designing accessible inclusive cities that there is a bigger picture to think about and thinking about people who aren't from not just one city but from the country and how different countries and have different cultures and they react to different things in different ways and I think it's so important when we communicate that to people that these visuals or sounds or experiences are clearly communicated thank you Kat I think so inclusion means a lot of different things to a lot of different people in writing a book recently on the topic I was asked to write a book on inclusion I realized I actually didn't know what that word meant anymore and looking it up the Latin root clodera is to shut inclusion is shutting in and that kind of blew my mind for a moment that you know there can be so many different interpretations it's evolved over time on the other hand like conversely exclusion is universally understood is when you are left out is when you cannot access and so I ended up writing about exclusion as opposed to inclusion as a way to approach the topic I think when it comes to the design of cities all that we can really do is recognize one point of exclusion after another and ask ourselves what is this space really meant to be great at and how many different ways can people participate in that experience because a city is the convergence of opportunity of economic growth of personal growth and the ways that people want to get there are cities have to flex and adapt to those individual needs whether that's through technology through the ways that we recognize our interdependence with each other or if you know it's about removing some legacies and building new in their place so when I think about an accessible city I think about the human beings in that city asking who is this accessible to what does that mean and having that conversation on an ongoing basis in pursuit of finding and remedying those exclusions so we got Kira talking about making sure that there's parity across the world you're talking about flexibility and adaption so Eloise you're up being a non-New Yorker I would have to say the subway system making it more intuitive it's hard for me I can't just ask someone what you know whether I'm going the right way so that's really hard the other day I was trying to get to the east side and the trains options were downtown or uptown so downtown I went one way got it Alex you're not going to say anything I'm the moderator you get out of this one I mean I think while we're on our way to real inclusiveness of course the board of our societies and in real universal design inclusive design a lot of industries still don't choose to be accessible to government to kind of nudge them strongly to do so because it's the right thing to do and because it's the right thing for our future and I really think that for our present and our future and I really think government has come a long way specifically here in New York just that we're having panels like this and events like this and there are people like myself who are hired in positions like mine lawsuits have been coming out in favor of people with disabilities for quite some time means that the needle has moved forward there is still a lot to be done there is still a lot more complex conversations to be had in terms of money the human element the capital element the infrastructure element but I say keep the conversation going and I think just the fact that it's that somebody can no longer access something or hear something or be present at something that's no longer an acceptable answer is already a step in the right direction thank you Pat I'm sitting here in some sort of time warp but at some points I felt like I was back in the late 60s and early 70s when we would be meeting on these same topics and the conversations exactly the same and then someone reflects on autonomous vehicles and I realize now we're actually in 2018 well that's a good thing well that said I think a big problem has been the legislation of creativity when someone proudly tells me that their design meets the ADA I say whoop-de-do you got a D because that's just a passing grade when we were writing the ADA and sitting in Washington with the transportation board and I was listening to just screaming and pitching fits it was hardly a good time but we knew we had to do something because of the long time failures to embrace design as the solution I don't think governance is ever going to be the solution I think it's all about creativity and people we no longer design for people nor should we ever we're supposedly designing with people and that's essential my hope remains that at some point we'll recognize that what isn't working has to be flipped on its side and we have to start looking at what can work and if we're not all working together if everyone isn't at the table then we're going to continue having unfortunately these misfits and these very dismissive attitudes and then I'm reminded of being on stage with Ed Koch as his security guy came and whispered in his your honor there's been another death threat and when I heard that I just stepped back two steps because I didn't want to be in the line of fire but I loved Ed I loved this city and I know he probably wasn't everybody's cup of tea but I always look to Ed and his passion and his recognition that government can't do this alone and it really is by the people not for the people thank you Luke you're like a tough act to follow and she knows that you know I don't really have an answer I'm excited by the stuff on the walls in this room I'm excited that the stuff on the walls of this room because this is the National Design Museum of the United States this isn't like a classroom at NYU where we're just doing this for fun I think that's really validating I think the best thing that could ever happen is for me to go out of business like for you to go out of business I would love us to go out of business we could go to Hawaii we could open up a bar we could do whatever I would love us to go out of business it's going to take a minute because progress we talked about this after the screening I was here on Tuesday progress is asymptotic you always get halfway to equality and you never quite get there so you always have to push as hard as you can but I think some good things are happening and I think I'm excited that we go to open conversation about what it means to have stakeholder inclusive design I think that's I think that maybe those conversations I'm sure were happening in some quarters in 1966 but like they weren't happening necessarily here and I think that's good thank you Luke I'm with Luke in Hawaii I make a mean rum punch I think that the main thing is to keep the conversation going getting the people who aren't in this room who should be in this room into this room and that's probably our toughest challenge voices are heard and I think people need to keep using their voices I want to thank the panel here for everything they've done so let's give them a round of applause before we give them a hard time because now it's your turn to ask questions and I'm pretty sure it's going to to be a nice conversation please and if you can say your name before you ask the question so we know who you are you're going to call people though at the beginning the highlight was mentioned something in the design brief about make it accessible part of why it came as close as it did to being accessible which is not 100% money means is that they had at least one general public input meeting which a couple of disability activists myself and Margie Rubin showed up at in the architects studio and I noticed that they had this extremely peculiar perimeter on the pavement it's not just like a plain sidewalk this is some sort of aesthetic something but it's the weirdest, most unpredictable perimeter that they have that's all serrated and jogs around and I said if a person's wayfinding with a cane they'll be over the edge and into the mud and that's why it has a raised edge because even if they didn't specifically invite people with disabilities we heard about it and I talked the architect into it in front of 50 people and there was also perhaps a little social pressure among 50 people for the guy the reason why some of the high-line benches have arm rests which help certain people sit down and stand up is because Margie Rubin of Disabled in Action pointed out the need and talked them into it now these both of these examples of public input and also the fact that at the serrated part it's like sort of like an ups and down fork laying on a table if you flip a fork over you have that little hump before the tines that was also something I talked them into the official story of the high-line doesn't mention any public input at all it's just the architects where algenius isn't perfect but still you know universal design is viewed as a niche, it is not viewed as something that should percolate through general design thinking so when you go up in the elevator on 17th street you exit and you're heading west toward the river you go around 10 or 12 feet and then there's a bunch of bushes and shrubs in the dirt you would have to know about this and walk around it in order to get to the main sort of boulevard of the sidewalk that you're headed towards now that's a very peculiar kind of a navigation thing to expect people to do if universal design had sort of percolated into their general thinking they would have just let people have a direct shot toward the avenue instead there's one more peculiar thing you have to know at the armrests did not work out well because they're heavy stainless steel in the summer sun they become so hot that you cannot touch them so that should have been probably some kind of wood within a few years at the northern boundary before they made it even longer they put a bench which looked like a balance beam it was about six inches wide probably sit on that without pain where they get the idea that's a bench I don't know the chaise lounges are down in a pit they have a couple of little amphitheater things which were very cramped and they didn't want to redesign those to be fully accessible but part they did get some sometimes if you have a general public input meeting people with disabilities will show up and might actually be the only people in the audience that give you practical instructions that the designer can actually use but for example in the World Trade Center the architects were supposed to show up for a public input meeting at John Jay College and the thing runs for three hours the architect leaves after an hour and a half and doesn't even hear what half most of the public comments were because nobody's checking up on him and on paper it looked like he was there but no not really but sometimes we actually have a lot of information that can be used than some of the more general opinions in the room at a general public input meeting this is also how we had some influence on the design for the expansion of Penn Station but then when the glossy histories and hagiographies are published somehow that gets deleted from what the story is and it all turns into these architects were perfect having your input, having people sit on their community boards and all of that community board process certainly helps move things along so thank you for that question right here I want to know I have done a lot of research interviewing older people and all the things that are true about ADA are going to be 10 times truer when people like me in 20 years are still expecting to walk up and down the subway steps and I'm curious about the subways the new subway cars how much input, formal input to that gentleman's point formal input is made when you make a major change to a critical piece of mass transportation that everyone has to use great question we know, I'll tell you what we do know we the city of New York do not have the our involved as much as we should be we do have a couple of board positions that are there we have our commissioner of department of transportation Polly Trottenberg who is a fierce advocate for people with disability continues to advocate for people with disabilities on every way shape and form along the way so we have a voice there but not a big enough voice I believe and if you read accessible NYC that's our state of persons with disabilities in New York City it's on our website that I believe that we should have a person with a disability that is appointed to that board because we really need to make sure that the things that they're putting forward is accessible to that we continue to work with the MTA on every issue as a matter of fact in the next few weeks I'll be meeting the new head of MTA to be able to talk about accessibility and if you have if you hear him he is making a good point that accessibility is one of his pillars of his vision of the future of the MTA I know that there isn't enough work done and we're going to be pushing the MTA in that to get people with disabilities involved in that process and I think it's very frustrating and I know Edith certainly talked to that more I encourage you to talk to her a little bit after we're done because she's Edith is a darling when it comes to accessibility on the subway station I'm just going to give you a little bit of my experience about the subway system I decided I was going to try it one day and I said I'm doing it so I found my way to an accessible subway stop I got on and I had a transfer at 42nd Street and I get up this elevator on the elevator for like 10 minutes and I run in to Edith and I go Edith I'm lost which way do I go and of course Edith was there to be able to tell me that but now everyone's going to find an Edith so there has to be a lot of improvement that's made in the MTA our office committed to doing that and we're going to be pushing the MTA more on that as far as the subway cars go I haven't really seen them so I really can't speak to that I didn't specifically but the person in the back it was like playing bumper cars so we also have stupid ideas and we certainly need to be able to get people with disabilities more involved in that process and we're kind of we are committed to do that so let's get a question let's go two ladies right here in the front thank you Edith hi my name is Arlene Romoff and I'm a consultant and advocate for people with hearing loss I'm deaf I'm a late deafened adult lost my hearing as an adult and I use two cochlear implants and have authored two books on the subject I've been involved in advocacy for people with hearing loss for 30 years or so and been around been around what impressed me was Victor's response to Elise talking about inocapsion that he didn't know about it and that he thanked her for informing him about it my issue with that is that people with hearing loss are pretty much invisible where thought of as our disability isn't a real disability it doesn't inconvenience or doesn't look like it does but as inocapsion shows and your response shows how many people in your division have a hearing loss how many people anywhere who are hired have a hearing loss and in my 30 years experience the answer is pretty much zero or one or two in 30 years these people we do not get the jobs not in access or anywhere else I'm a past president and founder of the Hearing Loss Association of New Jersey which is a national that has a chapter in New York City as well I'm involved in that as well and I know firsthand we get inquiries from people in the job sector should they reveal that they have a hearing loss if they do they won't get the interview they won't get the job if they're already on the job and should they reveal that they're losing the hearing no they won't get promoted they'll lose their job no matter what if it's illegal or not there are always reasons so my point is that people with hearing loss are not represented in this disability community in places where they're paid for their work they're paid for their expertise so I'd like to tell you that caption works and there are other apps on the phone that can give you captioned phone service but the reason it works is because there's somebody like the woman behind the behind the curtain back there who is doing real-time captioning it keeps up and not only does it keep up it's the only app that will keep up in a teleconference call so that's a business function not have relay conference captioning which is available in New Jersey for free I can call and get free captioning for teleconference calls not available in this city but for purposes of design I would like to leave you with one big point and that word is acoustics nobody talks about acoustics well I'm the canary in the mine that these devices do not work well where there is an echo they don't function like a human ear so this room for example does not have an acoustic tile ceiling has no captioning is all hard services and I'm telling you that without the captioning I can't close my eyes if this were acoustically excellent I could hear every word it certainly is a thing to think about for accessible design and make sure that we plan and implement that way I think the lady behind you had a question thank you Eileen right behind her no no right lady to your left I had two statements the first one is that I had a lot of breakage so I had to go along the New York transportation services with canes and crutches and other things and the one thing I learned is that there's no notification if an escalator is not working and I happen to be working at Bloomingdale's and I had to be working at MoMA and they have two very large long subway escalators 53rd street and 59th street and there's never any notification when you get out of the subway when you're in the subway that those escalators are not working and nor is there any notification when you're approaching the subway that those escalators are not working what I am saying is that we're all talking about tech but there are simple things like words the person in the the conductor saying the escalator is not working or when you are approaching it that there's a sign that says the escalator is not working in front of the subway I've seen too many people who have more issues than I have stumbling and getting up I think it's about almost a hundred subway stairs struggling to get up with crutches, canes and disabilities of certain sorts because they can't get up or get down is that is a we also state this is that I have a friend who you know Beth who we were on the subway together and if we had known that the elevator was not working at the subway stop that we got off of it would have been a lot easier but we got off the elevator was not working and through the kindness of two very very special men they turned around to her and said I will help you one man took her chair, her wheelchair and the other man took her in his arms and they carried her up to the street with me and if we had not had that help I don't know what we would have done we would have to go back to her original stop and figure out a way of getting upstairs and that's what I'm saying we're all talking about tech what about some visuals and what about things you can hear I absolutely agree I've been in that situation a lot myself totally understand what the system is like changing ways that we do things are something that we're certainly going to be talking to the MTA I wish I had the answer for this I can tell you I don't do we have ideas about how to make that work so automatically the elevators down the train station directly to the conductor to make that information both audible and readable within the train station yes that's something that we would love to see happen there are a lot of different ways to bridge this gap but again we're dealing with an old 1900s infrastructure how do we be able to do to make those things accessible Alex? Yeah I was going to add one One thing I've said to people when I'm in this situation and I'm talking to the person I'm not convinced I say to them what if that was your mother what if that was your father and you know what it's very interesting that I get a much better response because all of a sudden they're thinking about somebody in their own family who would not be able to function in this particular situation I agree I was just going to say quick to a bit of an overview the MTA is having a public forum on a new app that they're coming out with on March 1st the MTA has such forms but they are having one if you're interested you can get more information specifically an app prepare transit but at the same time it'll give the public a chance to engage with the MTA on accessibility I would encourage it to every one of you to go to the board meetings of the MTA and voice your concerns there as well Annie in the back Hi my name is Annie Leist I am an artist I also now work for the city of New York and I'm an artist I work for the city of New York and I have a vision that has been specifically created to focus on accessibility inclusion accessibility and inclusion of people with disabilities in the arts and the culture of the city of New York which is a pretty amazing thing and that's sort of where I also have a visual impairment by the way and also I would love to talk about quality of life and quality of experience we've talked a lot about getting from point A to point B we've talked a lot about being able to get into buildings and out of them and to be where you need to be and that is all incredibly tremendously 100% important and needs to be dramatically improved in the city we can do better with that but in addition I want to talk to all of the designers in the room who are interested in making interesting things not just functional things I think it's really important when you're designing something not to make it like the bright yellow incredibly conspicuous hideous tape recorder I was given from the Library of Congress to listen to my books on tape wonderful service really hideous tape recorder and as somebody who is an artist as well as a person with vision loss I always wondered do they think we don't care? Of course we care everybody cares how the experience and not just about how things look but how they feel, how easy they are to use and so that's my challenge to the design community and my question for the panel is a step further a huge portion of living in the city involves engaging actively in the community in all the cultural offerings the city has in all the nightlife in all the entertainment in all the museums and discussions and lectures like this and I'm wondering if any of you guys have any thoughts about that aspect of accessibility and inclusion in terms of the accessible city beyond just getting from point A to point B but making that experience awesome and making what you're getting to a point B worth going to Anyone want to take that? I can speak a little bit to some of the stuff we've done that you know cultural organizations especially have a responsibility in this space to try to again figuring out who the space is for, it's for everybody so how do we get there there are best practices that can be adopted, thought up, whatever but I think we did a decent job with your joint PAM when we were hanging out I think it's asymptotic it's like everything we improved there's other things that need to be improved I'd be happy to talk to you more about this but when I vision when I think of accessible city when I think of that label that's actually the first thing I think of the whole like I want to go dancing or I want to go to a club or I want to go to a really good restaurant and not have the reflected walls that makes it impossible to have a conversation right or whatever that's the kind of stuff because that's why we're here we're not actually New Yorkers because we like the subway we're New Yorkers because we like where the subway takes us does that make sense? that's my riff on that Tom Feiglperl got a question yeah please hop in on this Tom use your help up here if you can see I'm sweating Annie is one of my staff members I just want to say one thing which has to do with sort of intersectionality which is right now the Department of Cultural Affairs is requiring all members of the cultural institution group which is about half of the cultural life of New York City so it's the Met Natural History Lincoln Center, BAM, Brooklyn Museum, Queens Museum etc where we're the landlord all those institutions are being required to develop a diversity, equity, and inclusion plan by next year or there will be funding consequences if they don't so the question here is how the people in this room who all care about disability access and inclusion can be allies with the folks who are interested in gender issues race issues because diversity, equity, and inclusion always reverts in people's minds not always in this room but to race so there's a lot of stuff where I feel like there's no substitute to having diverse staff if you want diverse audience and diverse programming and that needs to include disability so I just wanted to say that more people with disabilities on staff so cultural institutions are going to solve a lot of problems they have to be in positions of power and responsibility Tom, we love you Hi I'd like to jump in at that point because I think what Cleo was saying earlier we are the choir everybody here is on the same team so we also have to be aware that we're here to support each other but then also my question is how do we welcome the rest those that are maybe unaware of what's happening but would be willing or if they knew more and I've been thinking not only about technology Luke can tell you that I'm all for human centered you know design and working with people but I also think that it's really about cultural awareness and acceptance and training so for example I don't do the subway at all mostly because I can do the stairs with help but when I get onto that subway platform I am almost mauled to death every single time but for me to risk my life to take something that might be slightly faster once I get down the stairs after half hour doesn't really make sense so even if there were accessible elevators at every corner I think the fact that there might not be as much awareness in the subway system as there is for the bus for example where people know there's a section that is accessible sometimes from people on the bus too because I'm not in a wheelchair and when I'm sitting down people don't necessarily know that I have a need but I think there's a lot of possibility and I want us if it's possible for us to think about what can be done and how we can include more in the conversation more people who would be willing or how can we culturally shift together because we are all in this together and I'm just really thankful for everyone in this room and everything you are doing we're all in the same team from different points of the field so I look forward to hearing more about if you have anything on the panel to say about ways in which we can engage others and include them in the conversation so that it's not just the choir the fact that I know half the people in this room is wonderful people that I don't know having these conversations I think that Kat really started off the conversation really well before when she said people with disabilities need to be employed if we're not in the workplace if we're not in the cultural institutions if we're not senators and council members if we're not working for city government if we're not there we are not hurt advocates make a lot of noise I hear Edith every day and I can hear her right now yelling at me but the reality is without her voice nothing gets done and if people with disabilities aren't in the workplace that's an issue we have an initiative called NYC at Work is to employ people with disabilities throughout the city in every job sector on the job of their choice in diversity and inclusion to finance to cultural institution and the list goes on I encourage you to look at it if you're interested in being involved contact us be more than happy to do that but Kat nailed it we need to be employed one last question and it's that lady right in front you are the winner thank you so my question is to the consultants in design so I'm also in design and I know when you're having the conversations about early on about being more inclusive that ego comes up a lot and it's a lot of like not in my design that's not cool, that's not hip, that's not trendy I'd like to know before you guys went into consulting how did each of you how did each of you change hearts and minds in those conversations when people were like not in my design that's not hip how did you get them to think well it's not accessible they're like no one but you and your friends can use it every and any mechanism and method at my disposal so I actually when I when I left Microsoft I thought I was going to jump out there and be doing design work right away I was ready for that and what I found is the work to do is to have conversation and to make introduction and the reason that I've found is because there is a lot of fear around how to enter the conversation a lot of fear about saying the wrong thing for someone who's not engaged in a community conversation it can be intimidating it can be accessibility section 508 trying to make sense of that can be intimidating so finding the underlying fear that is really preventing somebody from stepping in and then addressing that has been one sharp point it literally comes down to there is no language for how we talk about the hard aspects and then also the tools and the methods of making progress there really is a lack of methods for how to introduce human diversity into the design process we have tons of tools about simplifying it away to make sure that there is a lot of awareness and what not I found that it is entirely about hitting the motivation and starting to find these buckets of motivation that are themes sometimes it's the innovation and economic perspective that I didn't realize that half of the devices in this room or half of the objects I encounter every day actually started as a design for addressing a mismatch between a person with a disability applied as an innovation technique to my own business for some people it is truly the accessibility and the risk of retrofitting and the high cost of that so I'd love to share anybody who's seeing these places where that kind of cultural shift those entry points and those starting points because I think they're going to bucket and we're going to get some really good techniques for breaking the breaking the that's not what I meant breaking the ice I don't know to really get that conversation going across a lot of facets of exclusion anyone else Cleo before I came to the city I worked in a non-profit and we did some consulting with architect firms when they were doing renovation and construction and I tried to explain why the thing needed to be accessible or why you needed to add the assistive listening device in the design and I'm a human standpoint one example was one day designer was complaining they had designed this really fancy looking bar always comes back to bars and he didn't want to put the lower section that's required by the code and I explained to him if individual used a wheelchair or was a little person you know in order to actually function and use the bar and sit at the bar and eat or drink I could kind of see the light bulb go on above his head because now he understood why that lower portion of the bar was there and why we didn't always want it off to the side so then it just became the service section of the bar as opposed to for the patrons who are coming to the bar spending money and I kind of felt like he got it and maybe going forward he would think about that in other aspects of things he was designing well I want to thank everybody in this room of the audience so thank you for being here and thank you for Cooper Ewing for putting this on and thank you Victor for your fantastic job running the room and leading the panel thank you all for coming